KITCHENER — Sarah Quinlan Cutler says the Waterloo Region District School Board has missed an opportunity by not increasing the hours it offers its students in French immersion in the early years.

After much consultation, the school board plans to increase French hours in Grade 7 and 8 to 50 per cent from the current 34 per cent for September 2014. The increased hours means the public board meets provincial standards when it comes to French immersion.

But French immersion at other grade levels remains the same at half day French. Trustees approved the recommendation at a committee of the whole meeting last week and are expected to approve the changes from partial to French immersion at a board meeting on Monday.

“I’m glad that they are at least meeting the minimum standards but it was a lost opportunity to reform the program,” said the 35-year-old mother of four.

“I want my kids to learn French. I think language is important especially in this globalized world and when it comes to employability and mental function,” said Quinlan Cutler, a PhD student in geography at Wilfrid Laurier University. She was in French immersion in her elementary and secondary years while in Brantford.

Quinlan Cutler’s four-year-old son was to have attended Suddaby Public School, the school in his catchment area that offers French immersion but French instruction doesn’t start until Grade 1.

Quinlan Cutler, who sent her son to école L’Harmonie in Waterloo this year, wants French instruction to begin in kindergarten.

But the board expects to review introducing French at the kindergarten level in 2017.

Executive superintendent Mary Lou Mackie said the board needs time to evaluate the program after increasing hours at the Grade 7 and 8 levels before it can look at adding hours in kindergarten. Plus, French in kindergarten will also mean French-speaking early childhood educators, she said.

The program is dependent on student enrolment, she said.

“This is an incremental step. We are taking it one step at a time,” said Mackie, who added that the public board has a record of reviewing French immersion various times over the years.

Currently, there are 38 of the 103 elementary schools in the region offering partial French immersion.

Some of the challenges facing the board include a shortage of qualified French teachers in the province and increasing French instruction in Grade 1 to 3 would not mean extra government funding but rather extra costs in hiring, professional development for staff and additional space.

The board also conducted surveys with parents who said an increase of French to 90 per cent in Grades 1 to 6, would lead to a decrease in student enrolment in Grade 1.

Quinlan Cutler said the survey should have included other French/English options such as 70/30 per cent or 80/20 per cent. “It would have been less scary for parents” concerned that the children would struggle in math being taught in French, she said.

“Not offering a rich French program because of a teacher shortage . . . I don’t know if it’s a good enough reason,” she said.

Quinlan Cutler said she was disappointed to see the hours of French instruction at the public board amounting to a total of 3,472 hours from Grade 1 to 8, putting the board at the bottom of a list of boards across the province offering French immersion instruction.

The increased hours in Grade 7 and 8 will bring the total hours to 3,800.

Research shows that the mental exercise of knowing several languages at an early age gives students an advantage in problem-solving skills. Plus, research does not show that students in French immersion did worse in math or in the sciences, Quinlan Cutler.